Clutching the very thing that destroys you
Pouring your soul down the gutter
Illusions fester upon your heart
As alcohol speaks its own language
Bottles upon bottles shattering our smiles
As glassy splints muffle our beckoning cries
If only your flesh were more of a necessity
Not the fading tales of branded cider.
I could not tell your heart in a crowd of yesterdays
For maybe it’s you I have never known.
February 2011.

Feel it now, I touch the tender flesh that's crammed between my tea stained bones. My legs are throbbing, from running in circles, trying to stay on your tail.
But the flesh was stripping from my bones with every sprint I took.
Veins throbbing, I felt like crumbling.
I saw nothing but your shadow then, taunting me as you danced backwards away from me, your crescent smile left the only moon illuminating my dark.
It was faint and fast, gone leaving me in an oblivion of nothing.
Feel it now, I touch the tender flesh that's crammed between my tea stained bones.
Shin splints. Painful with every step I attempt to take, eventually my muscles will heal, sure,
Yet I'm still out of breath. Yet my heart is still racing. Yet I can't seem to catch a break.

some times the pain is exquisite -
beautiful and blinding ;
the kind of soreness that comes from hard work
and rough love
and aches good the next day.
some times the pain is harsh -
temperamental and overwhelming ;
the heat of bruised and broken skin
the kind that comes from a body trying too hard to heal.
some times the pain is indescribable -
everything and everywhere ;
numbing with seemingly no reason for appearance.
some times
the pain is just pain.

The Record Store died and the windows, some broken; held the light of day in transparent
tangles, sharp cracks in spiky slabs of glass. Red splints... fissures of bluish tint, silver yellows
glint in shifts, misfit prisms.
An old poster roasting an English Invasion,
facing the setting sun's horizontal furnace. Here and there,
the odd box, coats of dust, strips of beige tape; these
huddle in long shadows of analog. Looking in -
hands on either side
of your father's face,
you can almost see hipsters thumbing empty bins, like
bowling pins in an empty lane.
Bowling pins wearing scarves.

I shuffle my pod and rock on.

Shin splints are painful
And they also feel heavy
Don't ask how I know.

‘Are you all cured now?’

Oh, darling, if only you knew.

(But I’m a monument of
Self-restraint, whittled from
Rotting wood. Ragged shards
Chip off, jagged splints.

The eyes deep wells - an imperfect
Effigy, of sorts. Even now
I’m burning up, and awfully so.
Thick and stifling, the air bates

And provokes me. As the season turns,
I’m patched with canvas sacks -
For a time my steely gaze
Kept the birds away, but now

I’ve gone to seed, flaking
Dry brushwood and sown with doubt.
I grow strangely bulbous
At the centre, starlings nesting

And feeding near my abdomen).
I have questions of my own,
You know, and they all beg answers.
But yours, well, it came to me

Innocently, cut clean and smooth
Like a butter knife. A token
Offering, an afterthought.
I’ve preserved one half our

Peace of mind. My satisfaction,
You see, is a solitary one:
It tastes pungent, sweet, and
Maddeningly powerful.

Up and down strange alleyways,
We ride our bike into fences,
knocking over garbage bins,
spilling out all pretences.

Look at the side of my face as I speak,
my mouthed syllables’ suit.
Recognize the shapes I am known to make,
hear my clubs on mute.

Short runways are carpeted tarmacs,
take offs for toy planes.
Neon flags guiding us to square landing strips,
ignoring shin splints and ankle strains.

It's much too late again,
I'm in the bathroom practicing ****** expressions,
locking them into muscle memory
for my future confessions.

Let’s repeat the same mistakes,
until we have them perfected.
We’ll loop our lives,
what's not a refrain will be rejected.

"Run down the list, if you please."
"OK. Doc, let's start with these:
An earwig with shin splints,
a worm with heartburn,
A cockroach with a cold-"
"He should have wrapped up like he was told!"
"-A bee with hay-fever."
"She never listens either..."
"A centipede with a migraine,
A fly with wing sprain
And a woodlouse with suspected vertigo."
  "Is that them all?"
"Well, no. There's an elderly spider with a blister on his ***. He can't spin a web to build a trap or home.
There is a grub with possible depression,
A slug with a stomach bug
And a ladybird with gout."
  "Too many greenflies, no doubt."
"There's a butterfly with signs of hypochondria due to a swollen antennae,
no matter what I say he's certain he is going to die.
Now, the last is a delicate imposition: the Queen ant wants birth control,
Because she is sick of her pregnant condition."

the truth is,
healing was never going to be linear.
we were never going to conquer our fear
or our pain or our guilt or our shame
and move onto the next thing.
we were bound from birth to conquer the same
thing over and over and over again.
the past would never be behind us.
the present would never be the only
space we existed in.
the future was never tangible,
never really in front of us...
it's just kind of a concept that hangs
unreachable above our heads.
this thing we think we're walking toward,
it keeps us moving.
we're always moving,
but the grounds we walk lead nowhere.
our lives are no more a journey
than a jog on a treadmill...
moving forward was always an illusion.
we are walking the same path
again and again and again
and we develop shin splints
on random occasion,
and then we have something to heal,
and we do it...
we heal ourselves of our shin splints,
but they come back
and we are forced to start
the therapy all over.
life was never about fixing
all of our problems,
until we are left with nothing
but goodness and strength,
because all of our problems
are not constant.
we aren't born with every
problem we'll have,
so that we can spend the
beginning of our lives
fixing each one until
we are rid of the pain
and the flaws that
slow us down.
we fix a problem
and an other appears
and we fix that problem
and we are catapulted
into tragedy
where old problems
resurface suddenly.
and this never stops.
nothing is ever really "fixed".
nothing is ever really over.
i wasn't built to ever be whole
and present all at once.
i am pieces scattered out
all over every inch
of the earth,
that i've touched.
i couldn't wait for that
anatomy class to end
last semester,
but even when it ended,
i never really left it.
there's still a piece of me
sitting in a seething frustration
at my own inadequacies,
my own inability to retain
the information,
and that piece will
be stagnant in anatomy forever,
because now that i've unlocked
that specific brand of frustration
that exists in me,
there is no way to lock it again.
my growth was never linear,
it never will be.
my growth is scattered
like half smoked
cigarettes on long stretches of
endless pavement.
i am a good person.
i have bad intentions.
and i am a bad person.
i have good intentions.
i am everything
and nothing
and i am who i wanna be
but i am hardly anything at all.
i am strong today
but i may be weak tomorrow.
my growth is not linear.
i am scattered.
i am in bed
and i am dreaming
and i am writing this
and i am waiting
and i am comfortable
and i am content
and i am terrified
and i am exhausted
and rested
and confused
and full of clarity.
i am never one whole.
i am always a half of a half
of a half, and so on
and on and on.

This is the fourth time it's happened this winter
The fire is sparking
("Put on another log to dull the flames")
The wind, whipping up chaos outside, conspires with the moon
to plaster open our eyes, and
tangoes with the red of the streetlight to foreground the terror, the dramatic pull to this scene like the beginning of a barfight.
But all you notice is the snow.

Captivating Slush, like the wondrous stupid glow of children's television
("Close the door quickly, it's below zero outside!")
My chest wakes up to the sleeky bitterness of it, gentle but rousing,
like the critique of a crush taunting the back of your neck, but in reverse.

You've said that last line, and it's the response of everyone who can't savor what they most anticipate, the arrival of the thing itself cast aside for something mundane like safety.
The thing itself for you is watching snow,
and now you gladly push it away.

Life is so unpredictable, yet so callously routine.
To live in seasons is to be constantly surprised at things exactly how you've seen them before.
It's not emotions that frighten us, emotions are hand-me downs, the old favourite band t-shirts of experience, often ones we've worn before.
It's the feelings that surround emotion that we shunt out, that we tipex over in our journals of memory, our synaptic splints.
The tears of children who never turn back
to confront their tormentor with their tears.

And so now I'm walking upstairs as a means of brushing off these notions
("For the love of ... make sure the bathroom window is closed")
And I check my phone while debating how to spend the rest of my evening engaging with my phone while you rewarch American sitcoms, so cosy, your contentment as reliable as Irish wind
Then I sigh and look out the Bauhaus insulting bedroom window
Again I see the circus coloured tarpit the weather has made of our street
And wait a minute, trying not to feel anything
Because this is the fourth time this has happened
This year.

you will think too much when you are kissing the girl down the hall.

you will dance with her, half-drunk and half-joking, and something foreign in you will ignite. you will blatantly ask her to be your girlfriend just to gauge her reaction. you will curiously perch yourself on her lap and beam when she praises your vocabulary. you are more drunk but you are still half-joking.

you will think of the way she runs her hands through your hair and over your shoulders. you will remember how she feels about touching things, how she only touches what is important to her, what she doesn't want to forget. you will think about this when she asks if she can kiss you. you will think about this when her dry, drunken lips find yours and you will think about it when the pad of her thumb grazes the waistband of your jeans. you will think about how your jeans look, pooled on her carpet.

you will think about the time she told you how fluently she reads body language, how people's feet point to what they want. you will step on your own toes in protest every time you see her in the cafeteria. you will think about the time she laughs and says, "god, you're so submissive, it's adorable" and you will think about how naked she makes your clumsy body feel, no matter what you're wearing, like each flippant comment peels back another layer of skin and muscle and tendon and bone until there is nothing left of you but her whispers, evaporating into the november air.

you will think about how she makes you feel like a bad metaphor. like the fluffy rhyme schemes that she bemoans.

you will worry about her panic attacks. you will want to remind her to breathe. you want to make her chase you but you worry about her shin splints.

you will think about the song you'd told her you wanted to lose your virginity to. you will think of how she scrolls through her music library methodically until she finds it and kisses your neck for four minutes and fifty seconds so you can sing along.

you will think of her words. you will wonder if she writes about you. you will wonder how she would feel if she knew you write about her. you will grieve how miserably your feeble musings stack up to her well-timed, self-aware prose and you will draw parallels between this and the rest of her and how everything she says is profound and every gesture is intentional and how small and stupid she makes you feel, and you are gasping into the darkness beyond her ears, whimpering under her mouth, shivering under her quilt.

you will think about the hand she stretches precariously over her shoulder to you just before she is sleeping beside you. you will think about her fingertips. you will think about her hair.

your thoughts will be clouds of her cigarette smoke.

Heavy Footsteps

There was no greeting;

just strangers in running shoes,

except for Kaitie.

Summer Love

A choice of a boy

or a high I can't resist.

The decision is..

Hills Beyond Hills

Miles upon miles was

a calling to a smile that

he couldn't offer.

I Have To Leave

It was just a week,

a meek test to see your love.

You chose not to pass.

Holding Hands From A Distance

You chose to hold hands.

Close, firm, and knowingly that

it wasn't with me.

Trust Is Trouble

I am a rebel,

trouble could be my calling.

That's why I went back.

School Is Calling

Back with the same friends,

same boyfriend, but now I have

a love for xc.

A Change Of Course

Leaving behind the

“friends”, and joining to run to

friends, races, and YOU.

Fate Delivers Omelets

YOU, but I have him.

Me, “I can ask my parents”.

Now I have a Max.

The Decision Is

Shin splints and you

are both problem and painful;

I can't handle both.

Goodbye For The Greater Good

Trust has to be earned.

There is none for you or my

attempts at running.

Down In A Canyon

Low point: self esteem.

I couldn't compete with her,

You won my best friend.

A Break

There will be no runs,

but I have YOU and your time.

Brothers are great friends.

Love? It Doesn't Exist.

Trial and error dates.

My zipper will stay up and

I will take you home.

Staying Home, Listening to Mom

Time will bring hassle.

There is no need for stress or

crying from your voice.

Eventually.

I can hear “maybe”.

That doesn't assure grief will

pack its bags and leave.

Sun Does Shine

Positives are here,

but they don't plan to stay long.

YOU leave in four weeks.

Appreciation To:

YOU, for many smiles.

Writing, new friends, and fresh hope.

Mix Cd’s and love.

Falling Into A:

New year, new me, only,

my heart can't take heights or cracks.

But it takes the fall.

Love

For Max, parents, and

best friends that keep me going.

I am so grateful.

Toxic:

My thoughts of myself.

My compassion towards others.

The fact that YOU leave.

Realization

I am sixteen now.

I am wild, naive, and happy.

Change is très très sweet.

When It Comes Down To It

I don't ask for much, but can I for once

get something I want?

The fact that YOU will leave

and fall drunk upon cobblestone roads

infuriates me.

I don't want YOU to forget.

Little old me has a name,

it's Mariah, your only little sister,

the one only one that cries while writing this.

The Atlantic Ocean is our barrier,

along with our other hundreds of miles.

I don't want to wake up to

omelets from anyone else.

Trusting that you will remember is the trouble.

Fate is:**

Fun, it's what brought YOU and I together.

Hopeful, my dad didn't lie about the maybes.

Moving on, I hope I can too.

you won't bleed because you're not about to burn. you saw  my lips curl straight talk
and mock the glockenspiel of my garrulous tongue. you stun my assets. my accent falters. but yes... you hear me yearn. you gnaw at my shin splints. we resist what ain't lost.
we grog the real liqueur of our tepid angst. get ****** up.
i'll craft a promise when i'm tongue-tied...
i'll say anything with my tongue;  yup.
i love you.
but our disasters are so beautiful, i could love that...

i just might hurt you with my mouth full...

Mugging

Heart thumping at a rapid beat,
***** running down to my feet.
Getting mugged, gun in face,
the one **** day, I left home my mace.
He wants my money or my life,
wishing I had some kind of knife.
Slowly going for my wallet,
tears dripping like a leaky faucet.
Getting anxious, he ***** his gun,
should I submit or should I run.
Then I kicked him in the *****,
watching him as he slowly falls.
Grabbed the gun from his hand,
asked for his money, as he started to stand.
He said please mister, I'm out of work,
I said who cares you stupid ****.
He showed me his wallet, which was bare,
I could smell his **** in his underwear.
I told him to turn around and walk away,
he said till I get your money, I must stay.
Had no choice but to shoot him dead,
two bullets in his brainless head.
From the gun, wiped off my prints,
limped home like I had shin splints.
Went home and took a shower,
felt kinda bad as my soul became sour.
Closed my eyes and only saw red,
maybe I should have forced him to run instead.
I hate living in a state of misery,
from that day on, I felt kinda jittery.
Both of us at one point begged for mercy,
just a typical day in north New Jersey.

Splints are beginning to break,
wounds are seeping through the bandage,
sores have become infected,
scabs picked and pulsating--

Aspirin won't take away the throbbing pain,
nor will morphine numb the brain--
the leg below the ****** turniquet
grows gangrenous.

Maggots inching closer,
flies eagerly buzzing overhead,
divebombing into ruptured flesh
oozing blood and pus--

the body bag lingers menacingly
sporting its gaping maw,
hungry for mangled flesh
and broken bones.

Bloodshot eyes pleading,
crooked mouth on a broken jaw begging,
a sick contortion of a once beautiful body
****** forlornly on busy streets--
writhing in the weak mortal vessel that damns them.

---

How long?

How long has it been lying there?

Trying hopelessly to stand stumbling like an old dog
in its final moments of consciousness
before the impending ejection--
how many have passed it by
with a blind salute
and a knowing fake smile?

How long must this poor soul drudge through time
slowly draining its insides
and flesh feasted by the flies,
dragged along by marionette strings--

when will we see this creature,
in need of its good samaritan--
when will we stop the transient fix,
peel off the blood-soaked bandages,
and ultimately stare into the fissures
for a final, effective prognosis?

Look this ******* in the eye,
peruse its peeling sallow skin
hanging loose off cadaverous limbs--

lying,
gasping cries rendered soft moans,
lying in a cesspool of ****** fluids--
**** and **** and blood and pus
drowning within itself--

trace your fingers along the scars and wounds,
inhale the stink of death,
accept your incapacity to understand the weight of its history--
a great anguish heralded by generations afore.

Do not, then,
think it wise to abandon the poor wretch,
as your forefathers had done--
The Poison lies within you.

To heal, then--

is not a matter of medicine,
is not a matter of science,
is not a matter of faith--
it is a matter of action.

It is sick.
It is dying.
And it will take us all with it.

Would you die for its sins?

Shin splints, hit on vintage nightstands,
Already sore from the night before.
Lingerie spilled on the floor, lingering from one of your boy toys. It's okay expensive lip stick & high heels fix everything.

We are acting as juvenile
as two middle school kids
convinced their in love
when all they do is hold hands
and maybe sit together at lunch.
If they are feeling brave.  

This is as pointless
as straightening my hair
when the rain dribbles down
begging to invade my smoothness
and turn it into a waste of time.

This is as painful
as running with shin splints
and pushing on anyways.
Except it hurts on the inside.

This is as over
as it is.
and i would like to say
i am sorry for not being more okay
with juvenile pointless pain.

you ask as if I truly see
what comes from pure emotion
what depths of unencumbered breathe
the movements of the ocean.
not often captured on our screens
it's cast into the air
not often seen because we're scared
but don't deny its there.
it burrows deep inside your mind
and captures every thought
spinning swift into its web
then out comes bitters rot.
so cleanse thee tongue in silver splints
removing wood from thee
so each word, each phrase have linings true
to hearts among the sea.

Since I saw you,
I've had this hope live in me.
That everything that isn't needed be gone.
The details of sales papers, shopping carts.
The ease of temptation.
Standing still.
To fill my cart full of things I don't need.
Coffee rings, free samples.
The debris of reality.
Strings and paper slings around baked goods.
Shopping around facedown.
Pushing the cart row after row.
The things on sale.
The pings of the register.
Splints that aren't necessarily the object we've come face to face with.
Jamaican ***.
Our fingerprints used in vain
The residue from coffee pots and things we've touched.
Bottled, sealed tight.
Fresh water springs.
Still we pursue.
I pursue.
Your carefree sensibility.
I've walked every row in search.
Where have you gone,
Withdrawn

The spire rises on high
To humbly hug heavens holy white sky
And from the sacred gothic cathedral
Bells ring with symphonic sanctimony-
The sweet angelic instrumental harmony  
And you feel the presence of descent God from your homes
You smell the inviolate incenses of the Saints from your louvers  
The frankincense fragrances of the Blessed from your windows beckon
And you aspire your children to serve in the church as your neighbours
Good examples they will always be to the civilized society

Time to time alone you send her and him to them
To selflessly serve Mother Church to earn endless blessings
And obediently ****** leaves as per commandments
“Obey your Parents for your days on earth to be multiplied;
Serve the Lord your God unreservedly-with all your all!”
In church the child spends her entire free time
In church ****** serves innocently-restlessly
In church the child does his-her all to avoid any blame or blemish
In church ****** endears all to avoid any bad reputation  
After all what ill can befall you if in the House of the Lord-the Psalm says:
‘Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life!’

Dear innocent child, with a heart harmlessly clean
Does it know the monster is the wolf in sheep’s skin?
The perpetrator, is the priest-the sheep’s sheer shepherd
It is he who feeds on the fattened flocks of his Master’s fields
Unsuspecting, unknowingly he gets closer with him,
The priest, the sacred of peoples modest mediator
It is an old age adage in faithful ways of thinking:
‘Whoever gets closer to a pastor earns firsthand priority
To touch and share in his consecrated ointments!’

O my child, to darker places he is-she is sent
To collect vestments, ointments and sacraments
And quickly without resistance or hesitance
****** splints, timely and servitude is an altar’s teaching
Behind, swift too, the sinister minister-monster fast follows
And in darkness shush! He touches him-he touches her holy places
In return he/she is hushed with gifts of craved church’s wines and wafers

Confused-is this pastor N… really, or am I dreaming
Before long the child goes into silent phobia and depression
To who does he tell of the dark tales behind altars, vestry and sacristy
The man behind the Eucharist, the revered man of the church!
The blessed bass behind the mic, deeply unleashing
The Holy Ghost: “Bwana asifiwe, pokea Roho!”
To the convinced convicts-faithful brethrens is a satan, a monster
Is he who really touched and touches her in the wrong places?
It is he who forced into his baby’s brittle red bottoms
It is him who stole, vilely robbed his-her virginity and virtues

Who will listen to his/her sad story?
And it is the mothers-parents blame-consumerism connive
They are liars to tarnish the church’s good name
And when he says and cries and refuses to attend the Sundays services
The mother scolds him with felines’ violence
‘I am not raising pagans in my house,
It is either you go or go to serve the church!
Am I clearly heard and understood?’
O poor child, silent suffers this sacred soul!

With rigid society ready to absolve the ****** priest
With the parish ready to excommunicate the fighting family
With the church-Christ’s body-willing to go any extra mile
To save its priest and salvage its worldly rotting name
The state eager to close one eye and let the church rule
After all it is they that say-‘the church will outlast everything!’
The church is always innocent it can never wrong its attendants and congregants

Quickly the ******* priest is shuffled and reshuffled in all earth’s parishes
And the innocence stolen child is left alone to find its answers-
To sad solve and resolve its mysteries-objections, rejections and excommunications:
‘Who is God-who really is He and who are His consecrated men
And where was He while we were being ***** and molested
By the saints we thought sacredly serves in his vast fields!?”  
O *****! O sodomized! Sacred sufferings!

© Kìùra Kabiri. All rights reserved.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/catholic-priest-****-15-year-old-girl-kerala-india-mathew-vadakka­cheril-consumerism-temptations-***-a7613406.html?cmpid=facebook-p­ost

you're wrenching teeth out of
your own skull with the mangled claw
of a rusty hammer and drinking pints of
blood until you puke

in Sunday School they teach you
your body is a temple but neglect
to inform you that the temple is also
a prime spot to place a gun before
you give the walls a crimson paint-job

at point-blank
range it's
a target you
can't miss

it'll all be over soon

you drive splints beneath your fingernails
and pry off the keratin cell by cell
savoring the agonizing reminder

you are a human
you aren't dead
yet

Dear Body,
Why do you torture me so?
Muscles, bones, tendons
All perfectly assembled
So why do you say no to me?
Running, Running, Running
Pain, Pain, Pain

Shin splints, they said
Hip flexor, they said
Once better, the rest
said 'me too!'

Dear Body,
We're in this together
For the long haul
Together we rise
Together we fall

flaming torches in scattered line held high
crowd shouted back behind a safety line
celebrants, ministers officiate in stripes


dressed darkly to intimidate memories of war
red suited stranger rides along devil's tails
splitting ****** for laffs and noise spitting
arc light ahead of spent charred bullet case



screams evoked. stifles laughter as the smoke
evokes the War in mud so here : sticks are rifles.
over amplified comes over as cod eulogy flashes
the ears while sincerity plays out the church gate

we stand flickering eyed



"Feed the World ..."

murders silence

saviours hurry

"Turn it off, Harry"



Peace after a slowed to halt drum
Torches squared parafin trickle
air with smokey wax and uncertain
light that makes black to meet
the dark


poppies burn by the church gate


plans broken into an atrocious
conflict of split fuses sputtering
orange stars into painted skulls


burning splints takes cordite's place
making the air like thick magasines
filled with dum-dum bullets. homages
to horror waiting for the drum .


march.

the parade moves starkly on

cowboys

then

pearls

and

Devils tail.

i fall and shatter into so many pieces
that leave splints and gashes in so many people
that they fall and shatter
and lay here with me

My nights have gotten longer, my body no stronger. A foul air soils my apartment, stale cigarettes, my beer breath. Sleep doesn't bless me unless my brain is tricked, altered. Faltering footsteps due to shin splints, a spot of blood on the white wall by my bed from my arm. I gave up ****** harm long ago, or so I thought. It's just different now, I don't cut or burn, but I get drunk and fall, let people put out stoges on my back, fist fight for fun. Jeff said I'm a *******, and **** maybe I am one. I'd say I'm a mess even though I'm on track, pay my bills, work hard at my job. Hell, to the rest of the world I'm on my way up to the top, but to me...to me I'm a hazard, a ***** mop, a wreck. All I can think is that my own hands are getting tighter and tighter around my neck

Running away
all life spent, running
waiting for you to beg me to stay

running brings a sweat
shin splints, calf cramps
but it helps me to forget

I don't want to remember
my warm, safe bed
because memories of you haunt me forever

the smacking of feet
the breathing surrounding me
but this air starts to feel like concrete

because no matter how far I run
I simply cannot escape
because I'll love you forever, and then some.